The initial honeymoon phase of my SE Asia trip lasts 18 days, calm and pleasant from Singapore to Malaysia to Koh Lanta, Thailand. Then we hit Bangkok. Or rather, Bangkok hits us. Hard. In the face. It instantly becomes one of only two places in all my travels that I badly want to escape from and never look back.

Can’t Live With it; Can’t Live Without It
Bangkok is pretty much unavoidable as it’s the main transportation hub in SE Asia. It’s centrally located and cheap for traveling to almost anywhere else in the region. Despite our disdain for the city, J and I end up traveling through Bangkok three different times in all four directions: South from Malaysia, East to Cambodia, West to Myanmar, and finally North to Laos via Chiang Mai.

The first time around we arrive with the sole intent of obtaining a visa for Myanmar. Khao San Road in Bangkok is notorious for being full of backpackers, bars, and bogus scams. Unless you’re into that scene, most advise to get the hell out of there. J and I know this, yet we decide to stay in a hostel there anyway because it’s 5 am and we’re exhausted from just stepping off the night bus. (Hindsight: No reason is ever good enough to put up with the clusterfuck that is Khao San Road.) Immediately after check-in — sans-sleep and sans-shower — we take the express boat to the Myanmar Embassy only to find a notice on the door saying that they are closed for the next two days for some Burmese holiday. (Hindsight: We probably should’ve checked the embassy website first.) A complete wrench in our plans! J and I spend the next few hours wandering aimlessly trying to figure out our next move. We really want to go to Myanmar, but neither of us want to spend the next week in Bangkok waiting to get a visa.

The express boats in Bangkok are actually pretty cool. Easy to hop on, hop off — and one of the few transports where you don’t have to worry about being scammed.

Beware of the Kindness of Strangers
Sometimes the universe gives you exactly what you need; other times it sends you suspiciously helpful strangers on the streets of Bangkok. We encounter several of them in our short time wandering: local Thais that stop to give us completely unsolicited advice on where, when, and how we should spend the day. They are nice and we are tired. One of them manages to bamboozle us straight onto a tuk-tuk.

Two types of tuk-tuk rides can happen in Bangkok:
1) They overcharge and rip you off.
2) They offer you a seemingly irresistible all-day tour of the sites for 10 Baht (~30 cents USD), but in exchange you have to stop at shops along the way that try to sell you suits, jems, etc. Tuk-tuk drivers get money for fuel in exchange for bringing us “rich” tourists to these shops.

Somehow we got stuck with #2.

Help, we’re trapped in a tuk-tuk scam!

The Doraemon Trip from Hell
J and I eventually decide that we’ll take a side trip to Cambodia while waiting to get our Myanmar visa. To avoid the scam-central that is Khao Sao Road, our tuk-tuk driver takes us to a Thai government tourism office to book our travel. The agent there refers to himself as Doraemon, because he’s there “to make our dreams come true.” No joke. Doraemon proceeds to spew lots of manipulative BS at us. He tells us we’ll never get a Myanmar visa on our own and that our best bet is to go through a government agency, AKA him. He tells us that we can’t trust cheaper agents out there to book our bus to Cambodia because they’re all scams. We need to book soon because the Thai New Year is approaching. When J steps away, Doraemon even starts trashtalking him, trying to create distrust between us.

Imagine a Thai version of this guy

I know in hindsight it sounds laughable to fall for such obvious BS, but at the time we really don’t know what to do. Overcome with fear of being stuck in Bangkok, J and I against our better judgement fork over a ridiculous amount of money to have Doraemon take care of our Myanmar visa and book us a roundtrip bus to Siem Reap.

To get to Siem Reap from Bangkok, Lonely Planet recommends catching a bus to the Thai border, crossing the border on foot yourself, and then catching a Cambodian taxi on the other side to take you the rest of the way. This is one guidebook advice worth following! Otherwise, you might end up like J and I do on the Doraemon trip from hell:
– We have to pay extra money for tour agents to take us across the border when we could easily cross on our own for free.
– Once in Cambodia, we have to wait hours for the bus to fill up before we can leave. The entire trip ends up taking 13 dreadful hours. Travelers that didn’t book a direct bus hire taxis right after crossing the border and get to Siem Reap long before us.
– On the return trip, the Cambodian bus driver takes the last remaining receipt we have from our booking. He gives us stickers in exchange, assuring that they would be sufficient proof of payment for the rest of our journey. Upon crossing back over to Thailand, we change drivers and the Thai driver refuses to let us on the bus without a receipt. We yell and argue and eventually end up paying him an extra $5 each to buy our way onto the bus.

The entire trip costs us more than double what it should cost to get to and from Cambodia, takes longer than if we had done the trip on our own, and still manages to scam us a second time on the way back. When it comes to Bangkok, J and I are on the same page: We want out!

Better to Sleep On It
I freely admit that J and I make many mistakes in how we handle Bangkok, which contribute to our negative experience. Most important, we should’ve taken time to find our bearings instead of trying to solidify big plans right off the bat. Being tired in unfamiliar territory makes you reek of  vulnerability. We would’ve been much better off crashing in our 100-degree hostel room on that first day instead of engaging in a battle of wits with Doraemon. Nonetheless, Bangkok still leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. Sure it’s important to be smart and do your research while traveling, but I leave Bangkok feeling like every person I met was trying to scam some money off me. And that just doesn’t sit right.

[Thailand. March 26-28, 2013]